It was a lucky afternoon for me in the wet market today. One of my suki sashimi sellers says he missed me. I hadn’t been passing by their market (Farmers market in Cubao) for fish the past weeks. This time he offered me a better kind of tuna, the bigeye tuna.
I had heard of bigeye tuna and bought from the other market in Cartimar, at an expensive 550 pesos per kilo then. But somehow, that bigeye tuna at that time was not so memorable. I did hear the comments from family members that that bigeye tuna from Cartimar was good, but I don’t particularly remember me tasting it was that good.
Back to my afternoon and the offer of bigeye tuna. I got an offer to buy discounted from P 380 down to P 350 per kilo. If it really was bigeye tuna then that would be a good bargain, but how do I determine if it was the real thing?
1. Looks, the meat of bigeye tuna is not that deep a red as yellowfin.
2. Look at the knife when you slice the meat, there is a film of fat on the knife.
3. Taste, I got a free taste, just to convince me. Hey, yeah, it tasted really really good.
4. There was something about the thickness of the fat layer beside the skin, the seller said that this fish he got was female. Female bigeye tuna is more delicious?
I bought 1 kilo of the bigeye tuna. Just enough for the family’s sashimi dinner.
The bigeye tuna sashimi was a big hit! First there was lackluster interest from my 2 younger children. They thought it was regular old yellowfin tuna. Then they tasted it, it also helped when my wife and my sister in law endorsed the bigeye tuna. We almost finished the entire 1 kilo.
But I begged off and kept a big enough slice for my eldest child for his breakfast. He had an early dinner at an odd time he never got to taste this bigeye tuna.
I’m spoiled. The next time I get tuna, I’ll only get bigeye tuna from my new suki. And be on the look out for more sellers.